The National Cathedral in Washington D.C. has officially replaced its stained-glass windows depicting Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson with “racial-justice-themed” glass depicting civil rights demonstrators.
Titled “Now and Forever,” the new windows show black Americans marching with protest signs brandishing words and phrases like “Fairness” and “No foul play.” No religious iconography is present in the new windows. One figure is seated in a wheelchair, and another appears to have an African Nationalist hat. They were created through a collaboration between artist Kerry James Marshall and stained-glass fabricator Andrew Goldkuhle.
The Civil War windows, which had been in place for over 60 years, were removed in 2017. The idea to take them down arose after white supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine black worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.
The old windows showed the generals on horseback, soldiers being drilled at West Point, engineers at camp, and the sign of the cross bestowing light to all beneath. They were donated to the Cathedral by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a private donor. Installed in 1953, the windows were intended to “foster reconciliation between parts of the nation that had been divided by the Civil War” according to Cathedral Dean Gary Hall.
The National Cathedral is the second-largest cathedral in the United States (the first is Saint John the Divine in New York City). It has acted as the unofficial church of the American government, holding many state funerals for America’s presidents and senators and hosting prayer services for several presidents’ inaugurations.
The “reimagined windows” represent “a new chapter in the Cathedral’s historic legacy,” its website proclaimed. The church was originally designed by Pierre L’Enfant, a French architect who drew up the city plans for much of Washington, D.C. The project was abandoned until 1893, when a congressional charter revived it. Construction started in 1907, with President Theodore Roosevelt helping lay the foundation stone. The long, arduous process of building the Cathedral took most of the twentieth century, with President George H.W. Bush overseeing the laying of the final stone in 1990.
“Instead of simply taking the windows down and going on with business as usual, the Cathedral recognizes that, for now, they provide an opportunity for us to begin to write a new narrative on race and racial justice at the Cathedral and perhaps for our nation,” said Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas in 2016, a member of the task force to decide the fate of the windows.
The original windows are being stored and conserved at the Cathedral while a board decides their fate, according to The Art Newspaper. Original glass icons above the windows, depicting a cross and armor among other things, have remained in place.
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